I’d never been had the luxury of being on the underside of a moving slug and, with the sun shining at just the right angle, I could watch the rapid undulations that propelled it along my car. And that was some neat stuff. Fare well, yon slugster. I’m sure you’re smushed on the highway somewhere around 95th and 69. May you provide a decent brunch for some brave bird.

Something that’s not so neat: the Left Behind books. I got about 1/3 into the first one and then just couldn’t take any more hackery. Besides, if I wanted to read a fictionalized account of the Ending to End All Endings, I’d read Revelations. Eschatology seems an idle pursuit.

I’m somewhat torn between my opinion of the Left Behind Series. I actually made it to the ninth book, and believe me, the plot does get better by the third book. But digging through the cliches and evangelic messages of the first and second book were hard. I found myself waiting to meet Satan. I wanted to know about his death and resurrection in the fourth, fifth and sixth books. I don’t think that is what the authors wanted to achieve, but when your constantly bombarded with this “You must believe” crap, it’s get a little overbearing.

I mean, it took Hallie until the sixth book to finally believe, and you have to read about 300 pages on the subject throughout all the books to reach an anti-climatic conclusion. I only stopped reading them because they hadn’t released the rest of the books yet. And upon that reflection time, I decided that I didn’t want to pick up another Tim LaHaye book again. Besides, I know Satan doesn’t win.

thanks for the recommends, balmsquad. i’d add ‘the chronicles of narni’a and ‘a wrinkle in time’ series to your list of books that don’t patronize – even though they’re written toward a youth audience (which is more than we can say for left behind.) i’d also recommend the ‘his dark materials’ trilogy for using a christian theme/theology against itself in an agressively creative and highly readable manner.

and, swollen arts, wouldn’t the entire series be that much more interesting, more dynamic, more literary, more everything if satan-atan-atan were to win? that’s what i want to see explored. such a situation would challenge the characters, the audience (and most of all, the writers).
left behind, with the devil in charge.